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by thefrankydoyles



Series: When the Dust Settles [1]
Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Look some things need to be addressed okay and this is my take
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 02:35:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15596340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrankydoyles/pseuds/thefrankydoyles
Summary: Franky is not the only one with scars. Bridget has them too.Aka, A small exploration of Franky/Bridget post 06x03.





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**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm on cloud 9 about Fridget's happy ending as much as anyone. That being said, there are some... things that I would have killed to see addressed, because you know it's sure as hell happening in scenes post 06x03 that we aren't seeing. Anyway, enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

_Those four walls now are the only place that I can breathe out_

_And those four walls now are home_

_—_ **_‘_ ** **Four Walls’, Broods**

* * *

 

_“Murderer!”_

Franky’s reddened knuckles slam the punching bag.

_“Monster.”_

Beads of sweat form along her sticky hairline.

_“You deserve to rot in prison, bitch.”_

Breathing ragged as she throws herself into three final punches, an anguished grunt escapes her lips. Her muscles give out, body going limp and sliding down to the ground. She pulls her legs inward, resting bony elbows on the tops of her knees, and lets her head fall forward into her hands.

_Fuck!_

She doesn’t want to cry. Can’t cry _again_.

She won. She survived.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

She tries to ignore it, she really does. But how can she? It seems like every time she fuckin’ steps out of the house, onto the streets, and looks passersby in the eye, she is met with disgust and fear.

For the first couple of months after regaining her freedom, she only wanted people to understand. She wanted to show them, scream at them, ‘ _That is not me! I am not a monster, I am not dangerous. I didn’t fucking_ **_do it_** _!’_

At first, when people would stare at her — in the supermarket, at the library, in the car — she would smile. She would flash a smile without teeth that wouldn’t quite make it to her eyes; a meaningless engagement attempting to convey that she’s fucking _safe_. It didn’t work though; gawking strangers would simply jolt their attention elsewhere, or spew a string of degrations under their breath… or pull their small children close and herd them quickly away from Franky’s soiled vicinity.

Eventually she stopped trying. Now, she mostly ignores the insults, and the stares, and the fear.

Mostly.

_“Dude, I think that’s the reality show chick that killed those people and escaped prison. Can’t believe she’s out.”_

Today, for whatever reason — she caved. Threw her arms out from her sides violently, and jutted her pointer finger towards two boys that couldn’t be older than twenty inside of a coffee shop.

 _“Do you dickheads fuckin’ read? I was acquitted, because I didn’t fucking do it. I didn’t murder_ **_anyone_** _.”_

Franky rubs her sweaty palm roughly against her face, desperately trying to erase the memory from just a few hours prior.

All she had wanted was a goddamn coffee. She ended up storming out empty-handed when every single fucking patron turned their attention towards the sudden outburst.

_I didn’t murder anyone._

Well. That wasn’t true at all, was it?

She did murder someone.

Bridget’s words have been resurfacing again.

_“I know you’re not a murderer.”_

_Oh, Gidget. I am._

She may not have killed Pennisi or Iman, but she _did_ kill Meg Jackson. And that crime is no less deplorable than those she was falsely charged with.

When Franky is at home, and she sees her reflection through the eyes of the woman that _loves_ her, that is what she sees — love. Safety. A reflection of herself that illuminates a person who deserves to be in this world. _Free_. She sees someone who is kind, and just as capable of love as the woman whose eyes and heart she is cradled in.  

But when she steps away, and meets the eyes of others outside of these four walls, she sees a felon — the reflection of someone who is not worthy. Who should have _died_ when that bullet tore through muscle and bone.

“Baby, please, _”_ Bridget always pleads softly through her lips, her fingers wrapping softly around Franky’s forearm, when she has the misfortune of venturing with Franky into her public hell. “Ignore it.”

She knows that no matter how strong Bridget pretends to be, how strong she _is_ , it gnaws at her insides at night, too. That the life that they had, the life that was dangled in front of them for a mere six months, and then ripped away in a nightmarish blink of an eye, is not the life they are currently living.

 _This_ life is a hollow shell of the life that _used_ to be.

Franky is free, but not; she is chained in a completely different, completely _opposite_ way than before — she is moving through this world that she fought tooth and nail to exist in, as an outsider.

Every time she leaves the four walls of the only house that has ever been her _home_ , every time she steps out into the _open_ , she is back inside of a prison, confronted with every single demon she has ever tried to expunge.

The irony is not lost on her.

 

* * *

 

Metal scrapes against glass as Franky nudges a bite of soft noodle and chicken around her plate.

“Franky.”

She looks up to meet Bridget’s eyes, but doesn’t offer much more.

She knows that she _needs_ to offer more.

Bridget sighs, tilting her temple against her fingertips, before her hand falls to her lap.

“You’re not hungry?”

Franky drops her fork, grimace contorting her features for half a second before her expression softens.

_Jesus, she’s being such a shit._

Bridget just wants them to have a _normal_ date. Like a _normal_ couple, who can actually be _seen_ together in public.

But nothing about this is _normal_.

“Gidge, I—” Franky swallows hard over the lump that has lodged itself in her throat.

Her thoughts are interrupted by some skinny blonde fuckboy practically barreling into their table as he loses his footing. He’s come from the bar in the next room over, no doubt, the stench of whiskey permeating their space as soon as he breaks into it.

The guy staggers a bit, swaying as he attempts to stand straight.

Jesus fucking Christ.

She’s about to turn her attention back to Bridget. She’s about to attempt to reach into this hollow pit that has been slowing forming in her gut for weeks, and pull out the _nothing_ and show her. Show Bridget that where _once_ there was energy and light and ambition, and she was _sure_ that there was goodness… well.

“Aye, shit! Prison bitch!”

The slur slams her chest, knocking the air straight out of her her lungs in a _whoosh_.

And maybe Bridget saw the darkness immediately clouding her eyes. Or maybe, the barely noticeable twitch of her right nostril. The one that indicates that there is fire coming, and not the kind of heat that she has to manufacture.

Maybe.

Whatever she saw, or felt, Bridget is trying to douse the flames before they grow any higher.

She holds her hand out towards the man, fingers loose in the air. Unthreatening.

“Okay, let’s take a step back, hmm?”

The man’s glazed, lazy eyes travel to Bridget, and he blinks, as if he is noticing that there is someone in the booth opposite Franky for the first time.

Bridget starts to say something again. Truthfully, the words don’t register in Franky’s brain; she is too busy squeezing her fist together so hard underneath the table that she feels her fingernails digging purple crescents into her skin.

_Keep it together._

“Is it true, hey?” The man’s eyes shift back to Franky as his words nearly bellow over Bridget’s softer, calmer voice. “You a lezzo too? I’ve heard about this, yeah. Everyone’s a homo crim, whacking each other off in there.” He doesn’t even look at Bridget when he says, “Is this your prison dyke?”

The heat finally rises to the top and Franky shoots up from her seat, a low hiss emitting from her lips. Bridget must have sensed the explosion imminent, because her hand is laying across Franky’s forearm before she even has a chance to shift her body towards the asshole.The sudden movements are apparently enough to finally convince the drunkard to back the fuck up.

“Get the _fuck_ out of my sight,” Franky grits. When his reflexes prove too slow, and the idiot just stands there for half a second, looking like a fuckin’ deer in headlights, Franky jolts her body forward under Bridget’s enveloping grasp. If Franky really wanted to have a go at this guy, Bridget’s hold would do nothing to stop her from beating him to a bloody pulp. Franky knows this. She knows Bridget knows this. She also knows that the point of Bridget’s grasp is not to hold her back, but to hold her _here_.   

“Go _on_! Git!” She screams. The sweaty man stumbles two steps backwards, seeming to finally _see_ the flames in her eyes. Franky recognizes the fear reflecting back at her, just barely nestled under the ego-bruised _“Bitch,”_ mumbled under his breath as he begins to stagger away.

More fear.

No, no.

She doesn’t _want_ this.

And she just can’t fucking _be_ here anymore. She shakes Bridget’s arm off and shimmies out of the booth.

“Franky,” Bridget calls after her.

_Fuck._

She keeps moving.

 

* * *

 

 

A half hour later and they’re home, separated from stale alcohol and another recently ruined date only by a silent car ride.

Bridget’s always known when to let her stew and when to push her — to prod her.

Franky walks behind the kitchen counter, fingertips gripping the edge of the granite. Inhaling a shallow breath, she lifts her head to meet Bridget’s gaze.

Bridget is standing on the opposite end of the room, arms crossed, bottom lip held between her teeth. Her weight rests on her left hip, a stance that mirrors the one she usually purses herself in, sans bad right leg. The boot is gone now, but it’s still healing, and she’s often in pain at the end of a long day. Not that she ever says so, of course.

Franky breaks the silence. She knows that Bridget is waiting. Always waiting.

_Then I’ll wait forever._

_“_ How’s your leg?”

Bridget’s eyes shift downward for a moment, soft sigh escaping her lips.

“It’s fine, Franky.” And then, after a beat, “Baby, you have to talk to me. _Please_.”

And it’s that last word that pierces Franky — shoots underneath her skin in such a way that she’s sure her veins will burst on the spot. Because this woman is pleading, begging, and she should never have to. Should have never _had_ to.

“Gidge…” she starts again. The air rushes out of her lungs, leaving an emptiness behind. She takes a breath and scrunches her features together to reset.

“I don’t know how to apologize to ya.” Her voice is low, fragile, and she shrugs, hoping the movement of lifting her shoulders up and down will keep her afloat.

She sees the way that Bridget’s eyes brim with emotion. The way that her chin gently tips upwards as her arms drop loose against her hips. Inviting, always inviting. Always safe.

Bridget doesn’t tell her that she has _already_ apologized. She doesn’t tell her stop. She simply exhales, “Try.”

Franky nods.

They’ve _talked_ , of course they have.

It’s been nearly four weeks to the date that she laid in that hospital bed, emotion spilling from her eyes, blurring her vision of the woman bouncing on her heels and squeezing her hand, as the chains around her wrist fell open.

Their first night home together — the first time that Franky walked into their bedroom with the _option_ of freely crawling into the only bed that has ever given her peace — she stopped short at the foot. She just stood there, at the edge of the bed, lightly trailing her fingertips across the loose threads of white linen.

She waited until Bridget appeared behind her, and whispered a barely audible _‘it’s okay, baby_ ,’ into her ear, lighting squeezing her hips and pressing her lips against her cheek. Bridget had held out her hand, and Franky took it.

And when they settled under the covers, as Franky felt the sheet fall across her shoulders as she rolled over onto her side to face Bridget, she shuddered — lungs collapsing in on themselves, muscles clenching painfully, eyes squeezed shut and her mouth the tiniest bit agape, because _fuck_ , she never thought she would feel this comfort again. When she opened her eyes, Bridget’s arms were outstretched.

_“Come’ere, baby.”_

Franky’s muscles moved and molded into Bridget as instinctually as her lungs inhaled the next breath of air.

_She was home, she was home, she was home._

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”_ Franky whispered the words into familiar soft skin over and over again, as if she could will them to seep into Bridget’s raw scars and heal them — paint them over with yellows and pinks and oranges, instead of the blacks and blues and purples _she_ created.

Franky wasn’t the only one with scars. Bridget had them too.

Bridget pulled her as tight to her skin as possible, didn’t say anything as Franky kissed every invisible bruise under her skin; just combed her fingers through Franky’s hair, and pressed her forehead to Franky’s shoulder, face, neck.

 _“I know, honey. I know you are.”_ Her voice was soft, laced with a slight tremor.

Before that night, Franky had never allowed a tear to fall onto that bed. Perhaps it was because she thought the space too _sacred_ for the kind of frustration and torment that she allowed herself to release in other places; places like her prison cell, or the shower —  where the tears got erased as quickly as they fell.

But on Franky’s _second_ first night of freedom, she didn’t just let a few tears fall — she wept in that bed. In _their_ bed.

An admission of guilt, of recognition, for all of the pain she has caused this woman.

Three days later, Bridget laid it all on the table.

 _"You hurt me, Franky. You put your hands on me.”_ Bridget looked away as she said it, jaw tightening a moment, but when she looked back she was calm. She lifted her chin. _“You violated our trust in the name of protecting me. I know why you did it, Franky, I knew in that moment...you didn't want to hurt me.”_

Bridget smiled sadly, shook her head, voice gravel. _“You did it anyway baby.”'_

Franky looked Bridget in the eye because that was the least she could fucking do. But damnit, she wrapped her arms around her own waist, gripping the skin on her hips, because if she didn’t, she thought for sure she would fall straight through the ground. Further, even.

 Words — words that didn’t mean shit compared to what Bridget _deserved_ — caught in the back of her throat like a pack of knives.

 _“I thought it was the_ **_only_ ** _way, Gidge. The only way to protect ya.The only way you would leave.”_ As soon the fuckin’ sorry excuse left her mouth, Franky grimaced in disgust.

Bridget’s shoulders deflated. Hand on her hip, tongue playing against her bottom lip, she tilted her head up to stop the pooled liquid from escaping her eyelids.

_“Oh, baby. And weren’t you wrong.”_

So yes, they’ve talked. But it is a… work in progress. Because it has to be.

Franky shakes out of her reverie and returns to the present. She swipes the pads of her pointer and middle fingers underneath her chin, mouth stretching, before meeting Bridget’s unwavering eyes again.

“They call me a murderer, and I _am_. You know what they don’t call me? A drug dealer, a manipulator, a _sexual assailant_.”

Bridget’s eyes continue to hold hers, but Franky sees it — the slight flinch at the last term.

“Gidge.” Her voice softens and she nearly chokes on the next sentence out of her mouth.

“I am all of those things too.”

Franky takes another breath, spreading her palms flat out against the cool granite.

“I’ve spent so much time fighting _so_ hard to be on the outside, but at the fucking disregard of everyone else, yeah? Especially _you_.”

Franky’s voice breaks on the last word. “I treated you like shit.” She nods once towards Bridget for emphasis.

“Of course I wanted to protect ya, but that was just a fuckin’ excuse, hey? But you already know that, don’t you? I was just — I was fucking scared shitless. Of losing you, of _not_ losing you, if I were sentenced to _life_.”

Her eyes begin to sting and she purses her lips in an attempt to keep her emotions from flooding out.

She swipes roughly at the bottom of her nose and inhales sharply.  

“You told me you would wait forever.”

The words are barely audible, as if Franky intended for them to disperse into the void as soon she spoke them into existence.

And Bridget’s shoulders drop just the slightest. Her bottom lip curls against her teeth. Her hand twitches and drums twice on the cold surface that is currently dividing them.

“I would have.”

Franky sags then, head falling a bit to the side, tear leaking out onto her cheek. “I don’t think I knew that then. It was too much — too much to...” she frowns and shakes her head in short, rapid successions.  

“Gidge... me? I’m not the kind of person who deserves a forever. What if this” — she gestures with a flaring hand and frantic fingers between them again — “what if this is it? What if your forever, _this_ forever, with me, on the outside, is just as confining, just as _fucked_ , as the version of forever that included teal trackies and ten minute visits across a cheap table? What if _this_ is just another fucking prison sentence?”

Her voice had steadily escalated, and Franky feels it — feels a wall crumbling inside of her that was never supposed to crumble.

“Gidget.” She feels like her voice is ten different octaves at once and her mouth is pulling to the side because she _does not want to break_.

But she has to.

So she inhales again and her whole body shakes, and she swears she sees Bridget’s body mirror her own. Bridget, who she _knows_ is gluing herself to the floor, gripping the damn countertop so hard that her knuckles are outlined in purple and ghost white.

Gidget. Who is about to let her shatter instead of wrapping her arms around her to hold all of her pieces together.

Because she needs to break.

_I’m not a good person!_

_Yes you are._

Franky’s hands fly above her head and her fingers link as she draws in oxygen through gritted teeth. She is not angry, or enraged, or frustrated.

She is scared.

She jabs her pointer finger to her chest. “Apparently, I am not meant for love. The world has shown me time and time again, Gidge, no matter how hard I _try_ to prove it wrong. And it’s still fucking showing me. I’m a fuckin’ leper in this city.”

Franky drops her arms, letting gravity slam them against her sides. “It wouldn’t matter, you know? If I were the person I used to be. I would have just screamed a giant _‘fuck you’_ to the world, maybe have given in. But it’s too fucking late for that because now I _know_.”

Franky pauses — inhales a sharp breath and shrugs a sad half-smile.

“What do you know now?” Bridget’s voice is soft, a near-whisper, but steady despite a layer of thick gravel coating her throat.

Franky shakes her head to the side, biting hard on the inside of her bottom lip. She leans forward against the counter to steady herself, palms spread wide again, silver and black rings reflecting glints of the overhead light.

“That I am capable of love — of _loving_. But I am too hard _to_ love.” She inhales an aggressive sniffle through her nose and shrugs, her body gearing for its autopilot — defense.

Before she went back inside Wentworth, she wasn’t perfect — not by a long shot. Walls would shoot up at a moment’s notice. She would lose her temper and storm out. But still, she had been learning and growing and _loving_.  

And then it all went to shit.  

Franky lets out a humorless chuff, crossing her arms over her chest again. She doesn’t quite know what she expects Bridget to say. Maybe _‘I love you,_ ’ before she takes Franky in her arms, holds her face in her hands, presses her lips to skin her to prove it — to make Franky _feel_ it. But Franky knows she loves her. Fuck, if the woman hasn’t proved that — that she would move heaven and earth for her. That she would _sacrifice_ for her. That she would lay down her own life, and what’s more, her freedom, in exchange for Franky’s. But it didn’t mean that Franky wasn’t hard to love, or that she _deserved_ that. That Bridget’s life — Franky’s dad’s life, her baby sister’s life — would be a hell of a lot _easier_ if they didn’t love her.

But Bridget does not say ‘I love you’. She does not run to her. Not right away.

Instead, she looks at Franky as she inhales and exhales slowly. She bites her lip, cocks her head just a millimeter to the right, and rests her right hand against her hip.

Franky can’t quite read the look in her eyes. There’s love, there always is. But there’s something else.

Bewilderment, maybe.

Bridget sighs. “Oh, baby. Do you know how much easier it would have been for me if that were the case? How many times I _wished,_ during the worst nights, half a bottle in… that were the case?”

Franky opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Her shoulders drop as her eyes crease in confusion for a millisecond.

And then finally, _finally_. Bridget is rounding the counter and standing in front of her, her hands coming to rest on Franky’s cheeks and pull her close until their foreheads are touching. Franky’s hands naturally rest along the indents of Bridget’s hips, and she feels tethered. Like a kite that soars, but never too far that it loses sight and gets lost in the clouds.

“No, honey. You are so easy to love,” Bridget breathes. Her thumbs swipe the damp pools under Franky’s eyes.

Bridget takes a breath, but doesn’t let it out right away. Eyes focused on Franky’s, she tilts her head back, her chin up.

“ _Not_ loving you, Franky Doyle. _That_ would be the hardest thing. Leaving you… _was_ the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Franky is still. Her heart is cracking a little, blood and chemicals rushing through her veins, but she is still.

She owes it to Bridget — to just be _still_. To hold her, and let Bridget hold onto _her_ , and be still.

They stand there like that, clinging to each other for god knows how long. Perhaps the tether will tear if they break their hold.

It won’t though.

Bridget finally speaks again.

“I can’t make you love yourself, Franky. I can’t change the reflection of yourself that _you_ see,” she whispers against Franky’s neck.

Franky’s breath catches in her throat. She’s not positive that she’s heard Bridget correctly.

But she did.

And she’s not sure — might never be sure — how this woman knows her better than she knows herself.

And then Bridget pulls away just far enough to lock her eyes on Franky. The pads of her thumbs brush against Franky’s temples.

“But baby,” she breathes, pausing. “I’ll be right here, Franky, until you forgive yourself. And after that… and after that, hmm?”

She says it like it the most natural thing in the world.

Because it is.

Franky knows with every fiber in her being, every bone in her body, that she feels the same for Bridget, would _do_ the same  — _loves_ her just as naturally, just as instinctively.

But she has used up all of her words and energy and air, so she doesn’t echo the sentiment back.

It’s funny how she can shout ‘I love you’ as her heart is shattering, when she is about to _lose_. And she can shout it across an empty street before she _runs_. But moments like these are harder. And she knows that Bridget _knows_ , but.

So she leans her head down against Bridget’s and cups her jaw with her left hand, right hand wrapped around her waist.

Bridget sighs and she leans into her, and Franky swears that her body practically melts into hers.

She tips Bridget’s jaw upward to press her lips against her forehead.

For the first time since returning home, Franky doesn’t feel the scars that she etched into Bridget.

She knows they are still there.

She knows that they are not _fixed_ , nowhere near.

But they are not broken either.


End file.
